Songs of the Pacific Northwest by Philip J. Thomas; Jon Bartlett; Shirley A. CoxReview by: Ralph StantonFolklore, Vol. 119, No. 1 (Apr., 2008), pp. 115-117Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30035475 .

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Book Reviews 115

could easily revive its political and religious resonances. Protestant anger at the reestablishment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in 1850 and at the growth of the Anglo-Catholic movement expressed itself in parades and effigy burnings on Bonfire Night. On the other hand, most popular historians and several novelists (including the best-selling Harrison Ainsworth) used the story of the Plot to preach tolerance, arguing that it was anti-Catholic prejudice and harassment that drove the plotters to violence. There have also been occasional supporters of a "conspiracy theory," according to which the plot was a non-event engineered by covert Government agents. Sharpe's survey of these attitudes and interpretations is both entertaining and instructive.

The last two chapters turn to a topic probably more familiar to readers of Folklore: the growth of urban fire festivals and their eventual "taming" by the forces of law and order, and more recently by health and safety regulations. Events at Lewes, Exeter, Guildford, and Oxford are used as examples. The pleasures of the family bonfire in the back garden are not forgotten (how long now, I wonder, before people start fussing about the health risks of its smoke?).

Professor Sharpe's excellent book raises two issues for our generation. How long can Bonfire Night maintain a separate identity in the face of the growing popularity of Halloween? And, somewhat more importantly, can we learn from the events and attitudes of 1605 as we watch the unfolding "war on terror" today?

Jacqueline Simpson, The Folklore Society, UK c 2008, Jacqueline Simpson

Scarecrows. By Gregory Holyoake. London: Unicorn Press, 2006. 256 pp. Illus. e14.95 (pbk). ISBN 0-906-29083-X

Scarecrows is, at just under fifteen pounds, remarkably good value for money. In essence it is a picture book, filled out with a mass of information about scaring birds, a brief hint at a link between scarecrows and fertility goddesses, and a run-down on commercial scarecrow producers and scarecrow festivals. Many of the pictures are amusing, and all are well photographed. (Fortunately scarecrows do not move, scowl, or smirk to test the photographer.) It is not really a folklore book, but if you enjoy pictures and snippets of information, it is very good value.

Andrew Bennett, The Folklore Society, UK c 2008, Andrew Bennett

Songs of the Pacific Northwest. Compiled by Philip J. Thomas. Edited by Jon Bartlett. Music transcription and notation by Shirley A. Cox. 2nd ed. revised and enlarged. Surrey, B.C.: Hancock House, 2006. 208 pp. Illus. CDN$34.95. ISBN 9-780888-396105

This book is the second and revised edition of the only substantial book published on the folksongs of British Columbia, Canada. The author, Philip J. Thomas (1921-2007), was a school teacher, a founding member of the Vancouver Folksong Society, and an inveterate collector of folk music and books on the same subject. The primary source for the songs is the people of British Columbia whose music Thomas had been collecting since 1951. Thomas also used the Howay-Reid Collection on the history of British Columbia at the University of British Columbia Library to discover some of the very early songs. The Philip J. Thomas Collection located at UBC Library Rare Books and Special Collections should also be noted as the repository of Thomas's extensive book collection on popular music.

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116 Book Reviews

The book is arranged chronologically and is divided into eleven chapters: "Pre-Colonial Times," "Victoria, Vancouver Island," "The Fraser River and the Cariboo Gold Rushes," "Towards Confederation," "Pioneering, Sod-busting and Settling In," "Canada's Army and Navy," "Transportation by Land and Water," "Logging and Sawmilling," "Mining: Prospecting, Coal and Hard Rock Mines," "Fishing for Salmon and Halibut," and "Ranching Dairy and Cattle." Supporting materials include four pages of "Sources of Text, Tunes and Emendations," a two-page bibliography, a general index, and an index of titles and first lines. In other words, the book has the required supporting structure.

There are sixty-two songs included in this edition compared with the forty-nine that were included in the first edition, published in 1979. Each song is provided with musical notation, an insightful historical text that fully explains the context of the song, as well as illustrations. These include photographs, drawings, diagrams, maps, and reproductions of ephemera. Here Thomas drew on his extensive collections to present such rarities as a print of a rubber stamp that identified a book as belonging to the Industrial Workers of the World (to illustrate "Where the Fraser River Flows," a song by the celebrated Swedish-American singer Joe Hill) and an official seal that identified liquor bottles as coming from the British Columbia Liquor Control Board-that is, not bootlegged (to illustrate "Prohibition Song"). Also included are diagrams that explain various technical processes of mining and fishing. Thomas also dug into the print resources of public and private collections for appropriate illustrations.

The revisions to the book include the addition of a new chapter six, "Canada's Army and Navy," with four songs. Errata from the first edition have been corrected and the "Sources of Text, Tunes and Emendations" have been added to. There was an advance print run of one hundred and fifty copies of this book, but the second printing has a more substantial run of two thousand.

The songs portray frontier society and the trials of people making a living in a wild and difficult physical setting. The first song, "The Bold Northwestman," describes an incident of dubious conduct by Boston maritime fur traders, in relation to native people, which occurred on the British Columbia coast in 1791. This is followed by other songs about the hard life of lumber workers, fishermen, and miners. Besides stories of love or fortune, lost or won, there are tales of politicians who doubtless deserved what they got from the lyricist and of bosses who range from "damn fine" to "not our benefactors." For a community so close to nature it is surprising that it is not the beasts of the forest that are the subjects of the songs; rather, it is more dangerous human wildlife that is featured. For example, from "Know Ye the Land," a song of the Cariboo gold rush dated 1865, comes:

It is here that the Almighty Dollar is rated A god in this Anglo-American land Where the greatest of blackguards if lucky is feted, While the poor man, though honest, may starve and be damned.

Or this from "Where the Fraser River Flows," a song first sung during a railway strike in 1912:

Now, the boss the law is stretching, bulls and pimps he's fetching; They are a fine collection, as Jesus only knows. But why their mothers reared them, and why the devil spared them Are questions we can't answer where the Fraser River Flows.

The work of extracting the resources from the land features in many songs, including "The Greenchain Song," about sawmilling:

Now, the pond men think they're Bunyans, and the scaler thinks he's God, And the sawyer thinks that each of them's a lazy, useless sod.

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Book Reviews 117

But if the truth were ever looked for in the lies that pour like rain, You would find out that the heroes are the workers on the chain.

But there is relief to be had by escape, as in "Far From Home," again from the Cariboo gold rush:

With luck at last, our hardships past, We'll head for home once more, And greet the sight with wild delight Of California's shore.

Or adaptation to the new surroundings as in "Hip-Hip-Hoorah for My Native Canada":

Hip-Hip-Hoorah for My Native Canada, The Queen of the Summer and the Lady of the Snow! Oh, the land I love best Is the region in the west Where the wild flowers blossom And the mountain maples grow.

There are also three CDs (available from www.rainshadowgallery.com) that feature songs from this book: "Where the Fraser River Flows and other Songs of the Pacific Northwest," "The Young Man from Canada: B.C. Songs from the P.J. Thomas Collection," and "Phil Thomas and Friends Live at Folklife Expo 86."

This edition is certain to be the definitive version of Phil Thomas's most significant published work. It is, and will remain, the foundation work for the study of folk music in British Columbia.

Ralph Stanton, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada c 2008, Ralph Stanton

Tales from Lectoure. By M. R. James. Edited by Rosemary Pardoe. Chester: Haunted Library, 2006. 56 pp. e6.00 (pbk). No ISBN. Available from the editor: Flat One, 36 Hamilton Street, Hoole, Chester CH2 3JQ, UK. Email: pardos@globalnet.co.uk

Anything from Montague Rhodes James is welcome, or at least it is to those interested in gothic tales, ghost traditions, mediaeval folklore, and the apocrypha. This booklet reveals another, and certainly not surprising, side to this polymath: an interest in folklore and fairytales. Mediaeval scholars will, of course, have come across James's edition and translation of Walter Map's De Nugis Curialium, and those interested in the fantasy genre may have read The Five Jars, which he wrote for his ward. The tales included in this booklet were translated from a much larger collection of Gascon folklore compiled by Jean-Francois Blade and published in 1885. James travelled frequently in France and may have become familiar with this work during a holiday in the area. The selected translations formed the basis of two lectures, but James makes very few comments on the tales themselves. The style appealed to him and he compared it with tales in Campbell of Islay's huge collections of Gaelic and Scots narratives. It was evidently the "strange and savage" plots that interested him; something one can well imagine would appeal to such a master of storytelling.

The Tales from Lectoure are newly edited and published in this booklet with commentary on each tale, setting them in the context of modem folklore studies, by the folklorist Jacqueline Simpson.

Juliette Wood, Cardiff University, Wales c 2008, Juliette Wood

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